The hunger pangs had stopped some time ago. I couldn’t even rouse myself to sip water. I knew that was a bad sign.

“You should drink something, sir,” López murmured dully from her cell.

“I will,” I whispered. “In a minute. Has Wilson woken up yet?”

López looked toward the other side of her cell and called out to the lieutenant in it. It took a few seconds, but eventually, the whispered reply came back.

“No,” López said quietly.

I thumped my head back against the gel wall. This was all my fault. If I’d not suggested trying to disarm the guards, we would have eaten by now, and Wilson wouldn’t be fighting for his life on the floor of a brig cell.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the headache that was growing worse by the hour.

“They’ll have to feed us again soon, won’t they, sir?” Johnson asked.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want to captain anymore. I suppressed a sigh and said, “If they didn’t kill us on the bridge, then they don’t intend to kill us now.”

We were alive because they needed us. But for what? To fly the vessel? Aquila could do that.

I opened my eyes, staring at nothing for a moment, and then narrowed them. Across the corridor, between two containment field cells, was a gap. There was nothing there that could explain why the gap existed. Most of the cells were butted up against each other. One containment wall between them. But Johnson’s cell across the corridor was separated from Armstrong’s cell but about a metre.

And where the blank gel wall stood, a hole was appearing.

And a face peered out of it.

Our eyes connected. The face jerked back. The gel wall resealed itself.

I scrubbed the sides of my head and blinked my eyes wide.

“I’m hallucinating, Commander,” I told López.

“I started hallucinating donuts two hours ago, sir,” she replied.

“I saw a face,” I offered.

“What was the face doing?”

“Looking at me through the wall.”

“Yep,” she said. “You’re hallucinating. I would have thought you’d go for steak myself. But everyone’s different.”

I pushed up from the gel floor, swaying slightly. How long had it been since the guard left the trolley there? Longer than I had thought. I staggered a little, aware López was clambering to her feet as well. I’d made the right choice in selecting her as first officer, I thought dully.

I took a step toward the front of my cell and said, “Hello?”

“Hello,” Johnson replied.

“Not you,” I said, waving a hand. “The wall.”

“The captain’s hallucinating,” López helpfully supplied.

“I hallucinated steak earlier,” Johnson offered.

“See?” López said to me. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I hallucinated cake,” Armstrong announced.

“What type of cake?” Johnson asked.

“Carrot.”

“Don’t like carrot. I like chocolate. Or red velvet.”

“How many cakes do you know about, Johnson?”

“A few. My cousin was a baker back on Earth.”

That thankfully shut them all up.

“Hey!” I shouted. “You in the wall. Come out!”

“Ah, sir?” López said. “It’s a gel wall. Those things can be four foot thick in parts. If the face is real, it won’t be able to hear you.”

“Good point. Johnson,” I said, “tap out SOS in Morse.”

“Morse?”

“You do know Morse code, right? Every officer is meant to know Morse code.”

“I might have fallen asleep during that lesson, sir,” he mumbled in reply.

Several officers started demonstrating SOS in Morse code against their gel wall.

“I hope the face paid attention in class,” López said.

“Synchronise, crewmen!” I ordered. “You sound like a herd of elephants not trapped survivors.”

“On the count of three,” Armstrong offered and dutifully counted down.

The SOS went out in perfect synchrony as López said, “It's a beautiful thing, ain’t it, sir?”

I snorted. Her grin back at me was wide.

The gel wall opened, and a frowning face peered out.

“See!” I said. “The face.”

“Hot damn,” López announced. “It’s not a steak.”

The face blinked at us. And then the eyes widened.

“You’re the Anderson Universal crew, aren’t you?” it said. She said. It was a girl’s voice.

I cocked my head to the side and took in her raggedly cut hair. She kind of looked like a street urchin.

“Are you a stowaway by any chance?” I asked.

No one onboard this ship would look as bedraggled as this girl did.

She glanced up and down the brig, taking in all the cells, and then slipped out of the hole. The gel wall closed behind her.

“Nifty trick,” López said quietly.

“Indeed,” I murmured.

“What are you all doing in here?” the girl asked, ignoring my question, I noted. “This…” she said. “This is the brig, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know which wall you just climbed through?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t have a map,” she offered. “And the green glow doesn’t lead here.”

OK. The stowaway was crazy. Great.

“Can you get us out?” I asked.

She studied the containment field and then stepped up to it. And then sort of did a wiggle type thing.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Seeing if it opens.”

“It’s not going to open to a lap dance.”

Several suppressed snorts sounded out.

The girl scowled at me.

“The gel walls do,” she snapped.

“You sure it's not the wrist comm you stole?” I asked.

She stared down at her wrist for a moment. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “He changed the settings.”

“Who did?” I asked.

She looked up at me and then pushed her wrist comm up as close as she could to the cell containment field. The field didn’t drop. But the access panel opened.

My mind whirred into sluggish action.

“Food,” I said. “We need food. They haven’t fed us since…How long’s it been?” I asked. “How long since Aquila went rogue?”

“Rogue?”

“The AI,” I said. “It’s rogue. The leaseholder’s done something.”

“Oh,” she said, looking away and biting her lip. “Um, just over two days now. Coming up on three.”

No wonder I was swaying.

“They left a trolley,” I said, nodding towards the abandoned food cart. “The food should still be OK; it’s refrigerated.”

“You want me to serve you?” the girl asked.

There was something strange about the question. In my brain starved state, I couldn’t work it out.

“We’re starving,” I said. “Please. We need your help.”

She looked directly at my eyes, almost into them. I noticed, despite her ragged appearance, she was really quite pretty. Her blue eyes seemed as deep and clear as Great Bear Lake back home.

“OK,” she said and turned to the trolley.

“What’s your name?” I called after her.

“Adi,” she said, starting to hand out trays of food to the closest cells.

“Thank you, Adi,” I offered.

She looked over at my cell and smiled. It was a small smile, and it seemed infinitely sad for some reason.

“You’re welcome…?” Her reply, though, was definitely a question.

“Hugo,” I said. “Hugo Tremblay.”

“Captain Tremblay,” López added.

The girl hesitated, then quickly handed the tray she was holding to Johnson. She turned back and looked at me, shock and horror obvious on her face.

“Captain Moore?” she whispered.

I shook my head. “The captain and first officer were the first to be killed by Price’s mercs.”

I wasn’t sure what I saw then on her face, but it pained me to bear witness. With a sob, she thrust the last tray into my cell and then dashed back across the brig, throwing herself into the opening even as it was still expanding before her.

“She’s done that before,” Johnson said.

“Yeah,” I offered, confused and a little wary.

“Damn,” López muttered. “I’d hoped she’d stick around to put the trays back.”

I closed my eyes and sank to the floor. Damn was right. If the guards came back before our little stowaway, they’d know we had a man on the inside.

The thought didn’t stop me from eating.